"the guy is not dumb...". No, it's all quite academic, in both senses of the term. The average American knows this sort of terrorism and mass destruction are the obsolete flickers of the last war, which Ullman/Rumsfeld/Cheney-types fervently wish they could conjure up again.
I love it when a Dr. Strangelove/Kahn type rolls off several scenarios worthy of Stalin or Hitler, then says it's probably too harsh..."given the magnitude of the consequences and the risk of failure", etc.
No moral considerations of any sort, of course, or of risks of demonstrating to the world a Reign of Terror, sponsored by what was once called the "last best hope of the world". Or that such decisions might launch a new Dark Age of unending religious conflict and global suppression of thought and human progress that we're already seeing closing in.
Nothing could be more perfect for Islamist warlords with millions of suicide warriors with nothing to lose, than so agreeably defining ourselves EXACTLY the way they wish us to.
This is so obvious, it's unbelievable these conflicts are not somehow intended overtly or otherwise.
Regardless of their ivory-tower doodling about most efficient forms of terrorism and death (and, oops !, maybe destroying an entire civilization: " ... destroy the will to resist within acceptable and probably unachievably low levels of societal destruction...") -- the point the average American understands is that these folks should be kept in a barbed-wire compound and consulted only for true enemies like Hitler...
Pssst - Message to Ullman-ists: Hitler's dead... Neither Germany, Russia, nor Japan will rise again to attempt world domination, and couldn't if they tried. The only way Islamists can succeed is if we mold ourselves in their image.
Anyone with any sense would concentrate superpower resources on cleaning up 20,000 loose nukes in Russia, and create a consistent international rule of law on WMDs. |
